Contemporary electronic power systems require power converters capable of deployment at the point of load. Competing considerations require increasing power density, decreasing mounting area on customer motherboard, and lower cost.
An encapsulated electronic module, such as an electronic power converter module for example, may comprise a printed circuit assembly over-molded with an encapsulant to form some or all of the package and exterior structure or surfaces of the module. Encapsulation in this manner may aid in conducting heat out of the over-molded components, i.e., components that are mounted on the printed circuit assembly and covered with encapsulant. In the case of an electronic power converter module, the printed circuit assembly may include one or more inductive components, such as inductors and transformers. Encapsulated electronic power converters capable of being surface mount soldered to a customer motherboard are described in Vinciarelli et al., Power Converter Package and Thermal Management, U.S. Pat. No. 7,361,844, issued Apr. 22, 2008, (the “SAC Package Patent”) (assigned to VLT, Inc. of Sunnyvale, Calif., the entire disclosure of which is incorporated herein by reference). Encapsulated electronic modules having at least one surface of a magnetic core structure exposed and methods for manufacturing the same are described in Vinciarelli et al., Encapsulation Method and Apparatus for Electronic Modules, U.S. patent application Ser. No. 12/493,773, filed Jun. 29, 2009, (the “Exposed Core Application”) (assigned to VI Chip Inc. of Andover, Mass., the entire disclosure of which is incorporated herein by reference).
Methods of over-molding both sides of a printed circuit board assembly while leaving opposing regions on both sides of the printed circuit board free of encapsulant are described in Saxelby, et al., Circuit Encapsulation Process, U.S. Pat. No. 5,728,600, issued Mar. 17, 1998 and Saxelby, et al., Circuit Encapsulation, U.S. Pat. No. 6,403,009, issued Jun. 11, 2002 (collectively the “Molding Patents”) (both assigned to VLT, Inc. of Sunnyvale, Calif. and incorporated by reference in their entirety).
Leads for connecting the encapsulated power converter substrate to the customer motherboard are described in Vinciarelli et al., Surface Mounting A Power Converter, U.S. Pat. No. 6,940,013, issued Sep. 6, 2005 (the “J-Lead Patent”) (assigned to VLT, Inc. of Sunnyvale, Calif., the entire disclosure of which is incorporated herein by reference).